Public Office (Accountability) Bill
Caroline Nokes ExcerptsTuesday 14th July 2026
(1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Public Office (Accountability) Bill 2024-26 View all Public Office (Accountability) Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 14 July 2026 - large print - (14 Jul 2026)
Dr Mullan
I thank the right hon. Lady for raising that point. It was on that basis that I sought sincerely to engage properly with the Bill, and the Ministers and officials who met me repeatedly would be able to attest to that. That cannot be sustained when a Government bring forward legislation with 24 hours’ notice of important matters of national security.
The Government say that they have now resolved the central tension that led to the Bill being pulled. After months of negotiations, the central claim made by their Ministers that it needed particular safeguards for the agencies working in national security has now disappeared—apparently no longer needed. A Government who have wilfully misled us repeatedly on this Bill now want us to set aside—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I think that the shadow Minister needs to be very careful in his use of language.
Dr Mullan
A Government who have, inadvertently, repeatedly misled us on this Bill now want us to take them on trust. I heard personally and directly from Ministers and officials repeatedly that independent safeguards were needed, and now, apparently, they are not. Supposedly, over the weekend, those concerns have evaporated, and that is totally unacceptable. We are suddenly setting aside in a matter of days what the security services have told us for 18 months, in consistent, sober, professional warnings, which coincides perfectly with the Prime Minister coming here to give his final speech on this matter. Are we really going to suggest that that genuine professional opinion has changed overnight? I do not think that it has.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I will hear the shadow Minister. I appreciate that temperatures are running very high, but it is important that voices are heard in this House.
Dr Mullan
As I have said, this could have been a Bill that we supported without reservation, but I am afraid that we maintain reservations about it, entirely as a result of its mismanagement by the Prime Minister.
I want to conclude by saying that none of this takes anything at all away from the families. [Interruption.] Labour Members do not want to hear this. It does not take anything away from the Members who have done so much to bring this legislation forward, but what is clear is that the Bill is the legacy of the campaigners and MPs—nobody else is responsible for our being here. I welcome their campaigning over many years and thank them for it.
Early Release of Prisoners
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker
I inform the House that Mr Speaker has not selected the amendment. I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House calls on the Government to exempt from automatic early release under the provisions of the Sentencing Act 2026 any offender who has been convicted of a sexual offence against an adult or a child, including rape and grooming, or convicted of the attempt, conspiracy, or incitement to commit such offences; further calls on the Government to bring forward legislation to enact this change immediately; and regrets that the Conservative amendment to the Sentencing Act 2026 that would have secured these exemptions was not agreed to.
We gather for this important debate at a dangerous but very strange moment. It is dangerous because from September, the Government will start releasing serious criminals from prison part-way through their sentences. Among them, as things stand, will be many violent criminals, including killers, rapists and child sex offenders, because Labour and the Liberal Democrats voted against our amendment to exclude them from the early release scheme. Thanks to those Labour and Lib Dem votes, some of those released may be convicted members of the rape gangs.
Our position remains clear: not one of these dangerous, disgusting people should ever have been included in Labour’s early release scheme. It seems that the next leader of the Labour party—the next Prime Minister—disagrees with the Justice Secretary and with the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Jake Richards)—the sentencing Minister—and agrees with us. His people told the Sunday Times that he wants to prevent child sex offenders from walking free. They say that his advisers are working on primary legislation, but they also say that as the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) is not taking office before the summer recess, they might not be able to act in time.
That is what is very strange about this dangerous moment. We have a Prime Minister squatting in Downing Street, holding on until the world cup final, recording videos in empty rooms about his achievements and legacy, and pretending that he will intervene to overturn Jarell Quansah’s red card, with no mandate, no purpose and no authority; and we have the next Prime Minister—indeed, the only candidate to become Prime Minister—saying that he disagrees with what the Government whom he is due to lead will do this September, but that he lacks the time or the power to do anything about it. That is pathetic. The House is sitting this week and next before the summer recess; there is plenty of time to act. The Government could amend the Sentencing Act 2026 to exclude rapists and child sex offenders through emergency legislation. They could lay new commencement regulations, delaying the instruction of the early release scheme, and give the new Prime Minister enough time to get his act together.
We have invited the Government to do those things in the motion before the House, and we understand that they will not contest it. After voting for the Sentencing Act and against our amendment to exclude sex offenders from the early release scheme, today they have folded, but they still cannot tell us the plan. Will they bring forward emergency legislation? Will they bring forward new commencement regulations? We know that these Ministers are in office, but not in power, so will the right hon. Member for Makerfield tell us, and the victims of these criminals, what will happen?
We should remember how we got here, for this is an ideologically anti-prison Government, and many of their policies look likely to continue under the new Prime Minister. [Interruption.] The sentencing Minister is chuntering from a sedentary position. I understand why he is anxious; I have seen the tweets that he sent about the right hon. Member for Makerfield, and I am sure that the next Prime Minister has, too. He said he was going to be “worse than Jeremy Corbyn” and had the
“political antennae of a dead cat”.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. The hon. Gentleman should say “worse than the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn)”.
Nick Timothy
Thank you for correcting me, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was quoting the tweets so exactly that I forgot my responsibilities.
As I was saying, this is an ideologically anti-prison Government, and many of their policies look likely to continue under the new Prime Minister.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
I took part in Rupert Lowe’s independent rape gang inquiry—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I think the right hon. Lady means the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe).
Jake Richards
Sentencing judges always consider dangerousness and risk to the public, as probation officers do. Every offender has a level of dangerousness, which is risk-assessed by probation as and when they leave prison. That has happened for the last 50 years and will continue to happen under the new Sentencing Act.
I want to end again by reflecting on the horrific grooming gangs scandal, which lays heavily on our national conscience, and the women and girls, often young girls, who were systematically raped and exploited and then disbelieved by those who should have protected them. Those who prey on children must face the full force of the law, but in order to do that, we need a prison system with enough space. The previous Government left prisons on the verge of collapse. We prevented the disaster of running out of places altogether, and the breakdown of law and order it could have caused, but only just. Now we are ensuring that we never again return to that position, building prisons at an exceptional rate and delivering landmark reforms to sentencing to ensure that there is always a cell available for the most dangerous offenders and to end the cycle of capacity crisis.
Home Office and Ministry of Justice
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
The debate will be opened by the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee.
Sarah Russell
Many thanks, Madam Deputy Speaker. My right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) suggested in December that this might be worth looking at again, and many of us in all parts of the House would be grateful for such an approach.
Catherine McKinnell
I entirely agree, and my hon. Friend has anticipated a point that I was going to make. The increased court days are clearly vital to maintaining productivity and the efficiency of the use of court time, although that only works if the court system itself is working. We have seen very good examples of the way in which the additional days are already being used to clear backlogs and reduce the number of outstanding cases. In the English courts, we have seen evidence of the prioritisation of domestic abuse cases involving vulnerable witnesses. This can reduce waiting times, particularly for people involved in those sensitive cases—and yes, that makes a big difference to them individually, but it also makes an impact on our system as a whole.
As my hon. Friend has said, we need a court estate that is fit for purpose in order to maximise the use of these additional days. I too have visited my local court, in this instance Newcastle Crown court. What was obvious, even on the day I was there, was the consequence of some of the malfunctions in the system that make it difficult for court cases to proceed, such as faulty infrastructure, the flooding of parts of the court building, dock alarms or door locks failing to operate. As a result of such problems, staff do not feel safe enough to do their work and maintain the security of the courtroom, and therefore cannot go ahead. Often it is vulnerable victims who bear the brunt of delays and cancelled court hearings.
On the day I was at Newcastle Crown court, I heard about a complainant in a rape case. Her husband was the victim of an assault by the defendant, who had raped his wife. They were forced to wait four hours for the trial to begin. They were eventually told that the defendant would arrive and that the delay to his delivery was causing the delay, but it had a knock-on effect on additional days in court. Such delays ensue right across the system.
Court staff report that, from a structural perspective, many of the issues affecting the court system in Newcastle have been caused by the departure of a full-time maintenance engineer, who was dismissed due to the need to make savings. In the light of the many delays of trials and hearings, that appears to be a false economy, which is why I am pleased that the Government have recognised the challenges to the court estate itself and are making investments. I am also really pleased that the Minister is acting on the huge problem of private contractors delivering defendants to an incorrect court, several hours late or just not at all.
Midway through a trial in Newcastle in April, a defendant left court in custody on a Friday, only to fail to reappear the following Monday, with a jury ready and waiting. It is completely unacceptable, a total waste of taxpayers’ money and hugely offensive to those taking part in trials. I know the Minister is aware of these issues and is keen to establish an oversight body to review the prisoner transfer process from end to end. I will keep a very close eye on that, and I am sure that other Members contributing to this debate will do the same.
Finally, I know that the Government recognise the importance of providing free legal advice, as set out very well by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton. The Public Accounts Committee has recognised the importance of investing up to £34 million more a year in criminal aid, which is welcome.
I conclude by asking the Minister to join me in recognising both the human and the financial benefit of timely justice, the absolute importance of maintaining our court estate, and the improvements. Where we see good practice happening across our system, it must be shared. I often hear good ideas and wonder why they are not being done elsewhere, and we need to have a system in which good practice is shared and best practice is rolled out for the benefit of justice right across the system.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
It is a pleasure to speak in today’s estimates day debate on criminal justice, and I put on the record my thanks to the three Chairs of the Select Committees that suggested this debate to the Backbench Business Committee: the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown); the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley); and the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter). I also thank all hon. Members who have stuck it out in the Chamber on a Monday evening, who clearly care about criminal justice.
Politics is all about priorities, and so often the justice system falls a little short. Unless members of the public have had experience of the criminal justice system, have been victims of crime or have a loved one who has had the experience of going through the system, it does not necessarily appear in their top five priorities for the Government, but I thank all those who work to keep the criminal justice system functioning despite the lack of investment, the often crumbling infrastructure and the huge amount of pressure on them to ensure that justice is served.
The system as it stands lets down victims and defendants alike. It fails to rehabilitate offenders, and so many never see the justice that they deserve. The Crown court backlog is clearly unacceptably high, and that opinion is shared across the House. It is the biggest challenge that the justice system faces, as the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) said in his contribution. Its exponential growth requires urgent action, but the fix does not lie in taking a sledgehammer to jury trials. Jury trials provide a fundamental safeguard of fairness and liberty, and they are not the cause of the backlog.
We on the Liberal Democrat Benches do not fundamentally believe that the Government have successfully made the case that their reforms will reduce the backlog or make any cost saving to the Department. The modelling has still not been made available, and the estimates behind the claimed time savings have been widely questioned. Even accepting the Government’s own estimates, it will take a decade for the backlog to fall below current levels. Indeed, the backlog is currently predicted to continue increasing and to surpass 100,000 cases by the end of next year.
What has been proven to reduce the backlog across the country is the very welcome uncapping of sitting days, and we are pleased that His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service has been allocated a £143.1 million uplift, including the funding for uncapped sitting days. With the previous increases in sitting days that the Government announced in the last round, Crown court backlogs are beginning to fall. The Old Bailey reduced its backlog in 2025. In Chelmsford, it fell by 10%, and Maidstone saw a 5% reduction in its backlog. Across the country, the overall Crown court backlog in the last quarter fell for the first time in three years. So the truth is that proper funding for our courts and open sitting days are bringing down the backlog, and we are yet to see the result of the full uncapping of sitting days, which came into place only in April.
Given the scepticism that the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) has expressed about jury trial reform, I hope the Government will give serious consideration to changing course. He told BBC Radio Manchester that the Government should
“pause…this and take a step back and have proper consideration”,
as the hon. Member for Congleton (Sarah Russell) mentioned.
On another area of the criminal justice system, we Liberal Democrats have put forward several amendments, such as training for court staff, so that the victim experience is better, because victims often report feeling unsupported or unheard. The Government must do more to continue their journey to ensure that the court system centres victims’ experience. Part of that experience is the processing after a criminal case, and access to court transcripts for victims. I acknowledge that the Government have made steps to improve access, after robust negotiations in both Houses on various Bills since July 2024, most recently the Sentencing Act 2026 and the Victims and Courts Act 2026.
I put on record the exemplary effort made by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), who has been campaigning to ensure that court transcripts are made available for free to victims of crime, after a constituent of hers was quoted thousands of pounds to access the transcript of her own court case. Nobody should be priced out of seeing their own story in black and white after they have gone through a Crown court experience. Charlotte Meijer and the campaign Open Justice for All have been campaigning incredibly on this issue. They have published a letter calling on the Deputy Prime Minister to go further and faster, and that includes ensuring that magistrates courts are recorded and sentencing remarks are made available for free in all courts.
We are not here to discuss the Courts and Tribunals Bill, but it does not seem to be progressing currently or coming back to the House in any rush. I would be quite happy for clauses 1 to 8 to never appear again, but other clauses that do really important things—introducing recording in magistrates courts, repealing the presumption against parental responsibility—are key to strengthening our justice system and our family courts.
We repeatedly hear stories of failings in infrastructure such as roofs collapsing, IT systems not working, and evidence being shared on a memory stick and being lost during a hearing. The Ministry of Justice must get a grip of this chance to change that and to improve the environment for those working in the courts and those attending them.
I will briefly move on to prisons, which continue to run very hot. They are overcrowded, understaffed and increasingly unable to rehabilitate offenders. Violence is rife, with an average of 28 assaults on staff every day across the prison estate. On the point made by the hon. Member for Bridgwater about higher sickness levels, I think that is in large part due to the stress experienced by prison staff. We see the same in the Probation Service, which has a much higher sickness rate than other civil service departments, and I think it is also largely due to stress.
The Liberal Democrats believe that rehabilitation must be at the heart of any approach within our prison system. That means investing in better education, alongside introducing a through-the-gates mentoring programme to support prisoners as they transition back into society. Education is a key area. I recently raised it with the MOJ, because Government analysis shows a significant decrease in core education hours in public sector prisons. That has been felt most acutely in women’s prisons, where there has been a 30% fall in the number of hours for which women can access prison education. The Government urgently need to set out a plan to reverse that trend, otherwise the cycle of reoffending will simply continue for far too many people. Reoffending, as mentioned by the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, is estimated to cost taxpayers £20.9 billion every year.
I sat down with a group of ex-offenders earlier this year, working with the organisation Revolving Doors. One of the ex-offenders I was chatting to had been in prison 17 times on short sentences. He explained that drug addiction was ruling his life; when he was released from prison, in order to fund a drug addiction that was costing him £250 a day, he would commit theft to the value of £750 a day. He would re-sell the stolen items so that he could afford his drug habit. This shows that there is a cost to our businesses as well. If we do not get the criminal justice system working, and if we do not invest in people and stop the cycle of reoffending to fund addiction, those people get trapped in the criminal justice system. Nowhere in our system is the “investor save” principle stronger than in our criminal justice system.
A well-functioning Probation Service is indispensable to rehabilitating ex-offenders. A dysfunctional Probation Service fails victims. Probation officers are expected to manage ever larger caseloads while receiving less training. Combined with poor pay, it is little wonder that many leave, despite wanting to help. A probation officer said to me, in one of my surgeries, that when she first started in probation 30 years ago, she spent 30 minutes with an offender she was managing. When she came out of the meeting, her boss said, “Why on earth did you only spend 30 minutes with that person? How on earth could you get to know them in just 30 minutes?” She said that if she spends 30 minutes with somebody now, she is told she needs to speed up because she has spent far too long with them and has far too many people to get through. She has stuck it out—she is still in the Probation Service—but so many people leave. We have a real retention crisis, because nobody goes into probation to tick boxes; they go in because they truly believe that they can change people’s lives.
In February this year, the Public Accounts Committee published a report on the efficiency and reliability of the Probation Service. It concluded that
“the Probation Service in England and Wales is failing”,
that it is
“teetering on the edge of collapse”,
and that its performance has significantly worsened since the MOJ and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service brought probation under full public control in 2018-19. The failure of the system is epitomised by record numbers of prisoners being recalled to custody. At the end of March 2025, recalled prisoners accounted for 15% of the entire prison population—a 49% increase since 2021. I recognise that the Government will have invested £700 million in probation by 2028-29, but we are yet to see a significant step change to show that that investment has stabilised the service. It is not just about the investment, though; it is about the culture shift that is desperately needed in probation. I have had many conversations with the Prisons Minister in the other place on this topic and I know it is something he feels passionately about.
Keeping the public safe also requires improvements to policing, a return to visible neighbourhood policing and an end to the scourge of officers stuck behind desks completing administrative work. Even though policing has received an uplift, cases are, as the hon. Member for North Cotswolds said, far more complex and require far more police time. This situation—alongside the alarming reduction in police front counters and stations—has left communities, especially those in my constituency, feeling abandoned. I should not see constituents turning around with shock when they see a police officer walking down the street with me in areas like Selsey; they are so not used to community policing people acted like they had never seen a police officer before when they saw us. The Government should commit, as part of their upcoming police force reorganisation, to embedding a dedicated rural and coastal crime team in every police force, ensuring that rural crime does not go unpunished.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
As my hon. Friend and the House will know, the reoffending rate is around 50%. Given the numbers he has just announced, it is inevitable that serious crimes will be committed. If the Government are committed to this policy, which I hope they are not, and want to release people early, which I do not agree with, they should not release these serious criminals. They should instead release the less serious criminals.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I will remind the shadow Minister that this is a debate on the estimates—perhaps we could return to them.
Dr Mullan
If you will forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am talking about a major issue that relates directly to the estimates: the prison building programme, the need for that programme and what the Government are doing to manage the prison population. I believe it is directly related to the estimates in that regard.
I repeat, sincerely, that multiple Governments of different parties have let prisoners out of prison early in order to manage prison crises, but they have never let rapists and child groomers out early. Government Members are therefore backing a totally unnecessary way of managing prison capacity. They really do not have to do it. They are being forced into doing so, and I feel very sorry for them as a result.
It is difficult to understand how the Government can lay these estimates before the House and put forward a proposal for changes to sentencing if they do not even know how many people they are letting out of prison and for what reason. I cannot believe that the Minister thinks that that is acceptable, and it will be difficult for her to justify. But, to be fair, she may also struggle to answer a basic question about her own responsibilities—about her plans to erode our right to jury trial and to abolish our right to elect.
The Conservatives will oppose any erosion of the right to jury trial. It is a constitutional protection that belongs to people, not to the convenience of a Government. The evidence does not support the case that jury trials are the cause of the backlog; empty courtrooms are. We are awaiting a date for Report stage of the Courts and Tribunals Bill. Given the political situation, and considering the Minister’s planned capital and revenue expenditure in this area, I think it is entirely legitimate to ask whether the proposal on jury trials is even still Government policy. When the legislation that is meant to address the central crisis in our criminal justice system is dependent on who wins an internal party election in the next few weeks—if there even is one—that is not a functioning legislative programme; it is chaos dressed up as reform.
Are the Government laser-focused on what will actually work to bring the backlog down? No. Instead, they have been laser-focused on driving through unnecessary vandalism on one of our oldest constitutional rights. While the backlog is still much too high, the backlogs in Crown courts are stabilising and even coming down in some areas. The Government have announced uncapped Crown court sitting days for 2026-27, and we absolutely welcome that, even though it took much too long. It is exactly what we have called for consistently, and I give credit where it is due.
We have seen the first quarterly decline in Crown court backlogs across England and Wales in three years in the most recent data. The Criminal Bar Association points out that in particular areas of the country, the reductions are more significant. In the south-east of England, the backlogs in courts are down 3.1% over three months and 4.2% over six months. In the north-west of England, they are down 2.3% over three months and 3.3% over six months. In the north-east of England, they are down 2.9% in three months. In Wales, they are down 2.4% over three months. Meanwhile, the figure for magistrates courts shows an all-time peak of more than 370,000 cases at the end of March this year, up 2% on the previous quarter—and the magistrates courts are where the Government want to send more cases.
We heard again and again in the first stages of the Courts and Tribunals Bill that the workforce, whether it be in the courts, judges or legal representatives, can bring the backlogs down, but that the jury reforms were an unnecessary distraction. According to the X feed of the monitoring account Idle Courts, recently as many as 123 out of 516 Crown courtrooms—nearly a quarter—were standing empty on working days. We know that that was not because there were no cases to hear, no juries or no defendants. It was because of issues such as listing challenges, staffing shortages and the underutilisation of available court space.
To date, the Government have not listened and have refused to drop those parts of the Bill that are, as the hon. Member for Chichester said, clearly unwelcome to so many in the workforce. I hope we learn today that what we are told about the views of the right hon. Member for Makerfield is correct and that this unacceptable plan to erode our jury rights will be dropped.
Let me turn to the Home Office elements of this debate, because the two Departments are inextricably linked. Members will understand that it is not the day-to-day responsibility of the Minister or I, but we both know that what happens at the front end—policing, charging, and bail—flows directly into the courts, with probation and prisons at the back end. Police officer numbers fell by more than 1,000 in just one year under this Government, from September 2024 to September 2025, and the total number of people involved in policing fell by 3,000. The National Police Chiefs’ Council said in response to this year’s funding settlement and the estimates that we are debating that many forces are planning service reductions, with consequences for officer numbers, staff capacity and overall resilience.
The Government cannot simultaneously claim to want swifter justice and a safer society while allowing the frontline workforce who investigate crime, make arrests and build prosecutions to continue to shrink. The Conservatives’ plan would put 10,000 extra officers on the streets, triple the use of stop and search, and introduce facial recognition technology in the worst crime hotspots.
On asylum, the Home Office estimates that there are more than 400,000 illegal migrants in the UK—people in this country illegally—but nearly half cannot be removed because of outstanding asylum and human rights claims. Total spending on asylum support remains at over £4.5 billion, and the decision of the Government to put even more asylum seekers in more expensive locations such as Crowborough in Wealden in the constituency of your fellow Deputy Speaker, Madam Deputy Speaker, is going to cost more money than if they were to be kept in their original places.
Let me close with this. The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee said that the focus of the debate can be distilled to concerns about the risks to public safety and trust, and he is right. We are spending more than ever before on our criminal justice system—billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money flow through the estimates we are debating—but reoffending is rising, rape gang survivors are being told that their abusers may be freed early and police officer numbers are falling. The Government may be about to change their Prime Minister, and with that the MOJ will more than likely welcome a new Lord Chancellor, so policies announced with great fanfare may quietly disappear over the summer, but the people waiting for Crown court hearings and the victims seeing criminals walk free will still be there.
We will not oppose the estimate, but we will not let the Government off the hook, either. They have had nearly two years and the numbers are not getting any better. The public deserve better. The Opposition will hold them to account for every one of these figures, whoever happens to be sitting in Downing Street when we do it.
Sarah Sackman
Prison education is vital, and I have seen some fantastic examples of it, in particular on a recent visit to High Down. Prison education can take many forms, such as vocational training and education in a conventional sense. In some senses, the bigger question is how do we make our prisons safe? There is no point in having outstanding education—I agree with the hon. Member that it is important; I do not think we disagree on this—if drones are bringing drugs and contraband into prisons, as he pointed out, and if prisons are overcrowded. If that is the case, it is almost impossible to deliver and see the benefit of that education. The fact that this Government are prioritising, through a £40 million investment, a drone prevention programme, that we are building new prisons that are fit for people to live in and receive that education, is a choice that makes sense and that, as I said, prevents so much of the problem.
Violence reduction units, the prison reform Bill, and the workforce plan that the Home Office has put forward are all part of the choice—I return to that theme—that the Government make, whether on policing, courts, prisons, or probation. We choose to fix the mess, and when we see a problem we make the choices required to fix it. Investment, modernisation and reform: the contrast between that and the choices that Opposition Members made when in government could not be starker. We must now give the plan a chance to work.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown to wind up the debate briefly.
G7 Summit
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Prime Minister
Despite the repartee, the hon. Gentleman is well aware that in our constitutional system, just as I deputised for the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions last week and answered questions on a range of issues on behalf of the Government, I deputise today to update the House on the G7.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
“For every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep. All of Lebanon must burn!”
Those are the appalling words of Israeli Minister of National Security Ben-Gvir, posted three days ago. I know that the Deputy Prime Minister will stand up and condemn this genocidal and, frankly, psychopathic language. Considering the very fragile ceasefire with Lebanon, does the Deputy Prime Minister see any version of lasting peace in the middle east with Ben-Gvir continuing to serve in Netanyahu’s Cabinet, and are further sanctions on him possible?
Courts and Tribunals Bill
Caroline Nokes ExcerptsTuesday 10th March 2026
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Courts and Tribunals Bill 2024-26 View all Courts and Tribunals Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Gideon Amos
I do. The hon. Member is right: the problem with these reforms is that they are not going to speed up the criminal justice system or solve the backlog issues. We have rehearsed all the challenges that the system faces—we know what they are, and they need to be addressed, but abolishing trial by jury for those affected will not do that.
Madam Deputy Speaker, if I may, I would like to spend a few minutes on a missed opportunity in this Bill: dealing with the state of our immigration and asylum system, which we all know the Conservatives left in an appalling state. The asylum backlog more than doubled in just two years, from 70,000 to 166,000 people waiting in 2022. Instead of processing those claims, the Conservatives opened over 400 asylum hotels. As the Government began clearing up the—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman might like to stay within the scope of this Bill rather than discussing asylum hotels.
Gideon Amos
The point I wish to make, Madam Deputy Speaker, is that this Bill should address the challenge faced by the immigration system. Alongside the Bill, the Government have a parallel proposal to abolish the current system and to replace immigration tribunals with a new appeals system. I believe that that should be debated in the House and that it is relevant to this Bill, but I will move quickly through my points about this issue so as not to irritate you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
This Bill offers an important opportunity to address the immigration system. I am concerned that the creation of a new body and the abolition of the appeals tribunal is not the right approach, and that it will devalue the tribunal judges who are ready and available to sit and hear more cases. I genuinely welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement of an extra 26,000 sitting days for that chamber, but extra days will not be useful if there are not enough judges to sit for them. In the words of a judge who wrote to me,
“there are not enough judges and if the Home Office does not do the work quicker at their end, which is where the delay is, it makes no difference.”
There are enough immigration and asylum tribunal judges, but we need them to be allowed to sit for more than 220 capped days to deal with the backlog. I tabled a written question on this point. Those judges are prevented from being paid more than salaried judges, and therefore there is an effective cap on their sitting. Those are the kinds of issues that we need to deal with, as well as dealing with the backlog in the criminal courts and allowing our courts to be used for two sittings each day—am and pm—as my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester explained. Those are the kinds of measures that would speed up the criminal justice system, not the abolition of trial by jury for those cases that would be affected.
Some hon. Members have made the point that trial by jury is not necessarily a constitutional right in all cases, and we understand that. However, denigrating trial by jury as unimportant or a minor right does not help the argument of those who are seeking to abolish it for certain cases. Looking back, it has been called in case law a
“highly valued part of our unwritten constitution.”
Going back to the 18th century, Lord Justice Camden said that it was
“the foundation of our free constitution”.
In the 20th century, Lord Justice Devlin said that
“it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives”.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I propose putting in place a five-minute time limit after the next speaker.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Members will be aware that a large number of people still wish to speak, so I will reduce the time limit to four minutes after the next speaker.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
There is absolutely no doubt that long delays in criminal court shake public confidence, and I can only imagine the distress of victims forced to wait years for justice. In my role as an MP, I have supported those who have experienced repeat offences as they wait for stalkers to face justice. It is tragic that cases collapse because victims cannot face reliving their experience, or witnesses’ memories fade. It is not just victims who are harmed by these delays. Defendants, who are innocent until proven guilty under the law, are also having their life suspended, and those defendants deserve fairness.
I am deeply worried about the income thresholds for legal aid in the magistrates court. It is ridiculous that someone in an entry-level minimum wage job will not automatically be eligible. How is that justice? Do the Government really believe that unless someone can afford to fund their defence, their freedom should be at stake? I hope that if this Bill passes Second Reading, the Government will put forward some substantial changes.
At the heart of my concern about this Bill is the fundamental shift in the role of the magistrate and the bench division. A typical magistrates trial lasts five to six hours; a similar case in the Crown court is likely to take three to four days. That is for good reason, as more legal direction ensures that victims and defendants understand the process and upholds the integrity of justice. I am deeply concerned that if complex cases carrying sentences of up to 24 months in prison are passed over to the magistrates court, they, too, will become longer, creating even bigger backlogs, and just shifting the problem somewhere else. What assessment has been carried out—I have asked this on several occasions—of the capacity of magistrates to sit in multi-day trials? Those trials require attendance day after day, so younger working magistrates will be far less likely to be able to take part in them.
The Magistrates Association has deemed that 17,000 magistrates are needed, and we have only 14,000. Previous recruitment drives have not generated enough applicants. Where is the evidence that our communities can find these extra people, who can give this extra time? The other problem is the age of magistrates. While there are some notable exceptions in the Chamber, 81% of magistrates are over 50. That is much higher than the average age of a judge. This proposal widens the demographic gap between the court and those facing justice. Juries provide broader diversity in age and background.
This Bill is a real diversion. We have an insufficient number of magistrates now; where is the evidence that people will be willing and able to fulfil this critical and increasingly difficult role, in which they can take someone’s liberty for up to two years? That is a huge responsibility for somebody who is not legally trained. Speaking of legally trained people, I have raised the issue of access to legal advisers before. The Lord Chancellor has indicated that there will be more money for legal advisers, but that was before this proposal came forward. I raised the matter after seeing the issues locally. I see no evidence that enough legal advisers are willing to work at this lowest rung of the court system to support magistrates.
I also wanted to raise the issue of the processes in the magistrates courts. One of my constituents, having been denied the right to go to the Crown court, has been told that she has just 27 minutes to plead her case, which she feels is a denial of her rights. We are talking about cases in which liberty is at risk, and a criminal conviction could lead to the loss of employment or travel rights, and could have a reputational impact for years to come, so we really must consider the effect of this significant move on both victims and defendants.
I wonder whether the Lord Chancellor can tell us who said that
“juries are representative of local populations”,
and
“a filter for prejudice”;
that
“Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea”,
and that the Government should not fix backlogs by abandoning a
“valuable tradition for short term benefit”
in either-way trials.
Court Reporting Data
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(6 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. The hon. and learned Lady will know that she had three minutes, which she has used. I call the shadow Minister.
Dr Mullan
Here we are again. Not even one week after this Government had to be forced to release the Mandelson files—looking out for themselves and not for victims—we are back with a Government who preach transparency and practise the opposite. The pattern is clear. They will not release migrant crime data. They fought our efforts to institute a grooming gangs inquiry every step of the way. That campaign was fuelled by journalists uncovering what was happening in our courts. What are the Government now intent on doing? Delete, delete, delete. They want to make it harder for journalists to report the truth. What is it that they are worried about? Could it be that they want to hide the fact that thousands of criminals will escape justice under their Sentencing Act 2026? Could it be that when they erode our rights to jury trials, they do not want the public to hear about the results? Can anyone draw any conclusion other than that they are determined to escape accountability for their damaging policies?
The Courtsdesk project has been a huge success. Introduced by the shadow Home Secretary, it has revolutionised the transparency of our courtrooms. Courtsdesk reports that more than 1,500 journalists have used the platform. That is why so many journalists are rallying in support. What of the apparent data breach that the Government are using as an excuse for this? Have they engaged with Courtsdesk? No, they have not. There has been not one single meeting, despite multiple requests to the Minister. It is not just officialdom that is to blame. The Courts Minister has been written to by Courtsdesk and several major media organisations. She has been told directly how important this system is.
This is a Minister who comes to the House and professes how vital magistrates courts are to the Government’s plans to take a sledgehammer to jury trials. She needs to tell us why she and her officials have refused even to meet Courtsdesk. What assessment have they made of the impact of this decision on open justice? Delete, delete, delete; stonewall, ignore and deflect—that is the character of this Government in their operations. We will not stand by and let them do the same in our courts.
Sarah Sackman
I am afraid that the bombast we have just heard is not just inaccurate but dangerous, because it suggests that there is anything like a restriction on open justice. Let me be absolutely clear: there has been no deletion of any court lists. [Interruption.] Excuse me. There has been no deletion of any court lists, which is the nature of the data that has been provided.
Let us be absolutely clear: we had an arrangement with Courtsdesk, which we accept provides a useful service. [Interruption.] What Courtsdesk did, which the shadow Minister does not seem to think is a problem, is to pass that information on in breach of the agreement—no doubt for commercial purposes—to an AI company. That information included defendants’ addresses and dates of birth. I do not think anyone in this House would think that such things should be provided to anybody other than accredited journalists, yet they were provided to an AI company.
We then asked Courtsdesk to delete the information that it held. As of yesterday, I understand that it still has not done so. It accepts that it has acted in breach of its agreement. It threatened the Ministry of Justice with legal action, which it has not chosen to take forward. We are saying that when a company acts in breach of an agreement, putting vulnerable people and parties at risk, it is very serious. I take data protection seriously, but there has been no obstruction to journalists being able to access through the usual channels the lists that we are talking about. That access remains open today, and it remains open to journalists to contact HMCTS.
Indeed, we want to put this system on a securer footing with the necessary guardrails. [Interruption.] I will repeat, because the shadow Minister is muttering through my entire response, that no one has deleted any court records. Everything that he refers to in relation to serious sexual historic crimes remains accessible. Case law remains accessible, and the court lists remain accessible.
Open justice is vital, but I will not have a wild west of private companies acting in breach of agreements with Government and passing sensitive data on to third-party AI companies. That will not do, and the shadow Minister knows that if he were in my position, it would not have been acceptable to him either.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)
It is a pity that the shadow Minister is reducing this issue to one of his conspiracy theories, because I know that the Minister is an advocate of open justice, and the Government are doing a lot on open justice by televising the family courts, publishing transcripts and other means.
Courtsdesk gave evidence to the Select Committee in its 2022 inquiry into open justice, and it is, I think, the only centralised source of information for journalists. It is an important tool, because court reporting and local journalism have suffered greatly over the past years. We do need a service of this kind, so when can the Minister tell us what will replace it? In the meantime, will she continue to talk to Courtsdesk, notwithstanding what she has said today, to ensure that the information can be provided for journalists in a legitimate and legal way?
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
I thank the Minister for setting out the data protection issues that have been identified with Courtsdesk, but can she explain why her Department ignored the 16 letters written by Courtsdesk asking for dialogue before deciding to do away with the system? As was pointed out by the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), it is the only centralised tool for justice reporting. Reporters have described the MOJ’s own data as fragmented, incomplete and impractical to navigate, and according to HM Courts & Tribunals Service, its own records on court listings were accurate just 4% of the time. It is those gaps that Courtsdesk was designed to fill by providing clear and accurate information for reporters.
Doing away with this platform will naturally add to the feeling that the MOJ is avoiding difficult questions and dodging accountability by undermining journalism. Will the Minister suspend the deletion of the archive until the Information Commissioner’s Office has looked into these issues and drawn its own conclusions? If she insists on going ahead with the deletion in the coming days, will she please give an indication of a timeline within which we can expect a platform that will serve the same purpose?
Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth) (Ind)
The Minister will be aware that we have privately crowdfunded a rape gang inquiry, which is ongoing. During the course of the inquiry, we have uncovered vast evil that is happening across the country, as well as systemic state failures. When we release the report, we are intending to pursue private prosecutions against those who failed, so will—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman’s question ought to relate to the urgent question.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
The hon. Gentleman will know that that is not a point of order and not a matter for the Chair. I do not intend to continue the debate via points of order.
Sentencing Bill
Caroline Nokes ExcerptsTuesday 20th January 2026
(6 months, 4 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Sentencing Act 2026 View all Sentencing Act 2026 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Commons Consideration of Lords Amendments as at 20 January 2026 - large print - (20 Jan 2026)
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I inform the House that nothing in the Lords amendments engages Commons financial privilege.
After Clause 19
Court transcripts of sentencing remarks
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jake Richards)
I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 7.
Madam Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss:
Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu of Lords amendment 7.
Lords amendments 1 to 6 and 8 to 15.
Jake Richards
I begin by putting on record the Government’s welcoming of the new shadow Justice Secretary, the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), to his job. We look forward to working with him; he is somebody of some intellectual heft, and in any event, he is in the lucky position of having extraordinarily small shoes to fill. Of course there will be policy disagreements, as there should be, but my hope is that the new shadow Justice Secretary treads more carefully on issues relating to the independence of our judiciary and respecting our legal profession—perhaps there will be fewer vitriolic social media videos and more thoughtful analysis.
As for the former shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick)—or, as he likes to call himself, the “new sheriff in town”—we welcome that the inevitable has now happened, confirming the fact that Reform is little more than a backwater for failed Tory politicians with an ego. I spent five minutes—five minutes that I will never get back—reading the memo that the former shadow Justice Secretary left lying about. It says,
“Use humour—one of your best skills—don’t be afraid to be self-effacing or have a laugh.”
It certainly got us laughing. His memo also contains the memorable line,
“Don't ‘think’. You ‘know’ things to be true! Get out of the habit of saying ‘think’”.
I happen to think that he should get into the habit of thinking a little more.
The right hon. Member for Newark says that he has joined Reform to be “part of a team”. We are still unclear whether he will remain speaking on justice issues, and he is not in his new place today. Over the weekend, it was said that there would be a mini-reshuffle at Reform—a rather depressing game of musical chairs. Whether its justice spokesperson remains the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin), or whether the right hon. Member for Newark takes over, the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) has a go, or the hon. Members for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger) or for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) join in, the story is the same: failed former Tories who cannot be trusted with our justice system, let alone our country.
The Sentencing Bill will make sure that we are never again in the position that this Government inherited, with prisons at risk of running out of places entirely, leaving us with nowhere to put dangerous offenders; police without the capacity to make arrests; courts unable to hold trials; and a breakdown of law and order unlike anything we have seen in modern times. That is why this Bill is vital. It does not kick the can down the road, and it does not shy away from making tough decisions to keep the public safe. Instead, it will end the cycle of crisis once and for all.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
In government, the Conservative party oversaw a disastrous privatisation of probation, which ended in a £500 million bail-out by taxpayers. Our Probation Service plays a critical role in the rehabilitation of offenders and in keeping our communities safe, so can the Minister further set out how the Bill will ensure that our probation systems are strengthened and fit for purpose?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Can the Minister perhaps restrict himself to the amendments?
Public Office (Accountability) Bill
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(6 months, 4 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)
With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement on the next steps for the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, also known as the Hillsborough law.
As Members will be aware, the Bill was due to return to the Chamber today for its remaining Commons stages. From the very beginning we have been clear: it is a Bill for families, and it must have their voices and views at its heart. We remain absolutely committed to making meaningful changes for the families of Hillsborough, the Manchester terror attack, the Grenfell Tower fire, the sub-postmasters and, sadly, so many more.
The Bill is about something very simple: what people should be able to expect from the state when the worst, sadly, happens: candour, transparency, frankness and a system that stands with families, not against them—not a battle against the full might of the state. That is why the Bill is so important and is so long overdue, and it is why we will always be open to listening.
On Second Reading, the Prime Minister made a commitment that the Bill would not be watered down, and that any changes made to it will only strengthen it. We have always been clear that the Hillsborough law will apply to all public authorities, including the intelligence services. The Prime Minister was clear on Second Reading that the duty of candour would need to apply differently to the intelligence services, to get the right balance between transparency and national security. Last week, the Government brought forward several amendments to strengthen the Bill, including to extend the duty of candour directly to individuals working for the intelligence agencies, as well as to the authorities themselves. This was a direct response to concerns raised by MPs and campaigners.
There have been reports in the press that the Government wanted to water down aspects of the Bill. I want to take those claims head on, because, with respect, that was never, ever our intention. It is not what the amendments we proposed would have done. The amendments aimed to strengthen the Bill by extending the duty to individual employees of the intelligence services, as well as to the services as organisations. However, it is clear from our conversations with the families directly and with the stakeholders that there are concerns about how the accompanying safeguards we proposed will work in practice.
There will be questions about why we could not find a solution and why we need to delay when families have been clear on their views. I want to be clear that this is an incredibly complex area of policy. Across Government, we must think about all the possible scenarios and unintended consequences for national security, and then work together with Parliament, the Intelligence and Security Committee, the campaigners and, most of all, the families to find a way through.
It is right to acknowledge that this is not a simple issue to resolve. We are absolutely committed to the principles of the Bill: ensuring clear standards for all public servants and accountability for anyone who seeks to lie or cover up the truth. At the same time, our primary duty as the Government is to keep this country safe and secure. We must be able to assure our citizens and our allies that national security information will always be protected.
The Government remain resolutely committed to finding a way forward on this issue, which is why we have taken the decision to delay the remaining Commons stages of the Bill so that we can find a solution and bring it forward in this House. This pause is not a step back from our principles; it is a commitment to getting this right. I know that families have waited too long already. This decision is not one we took lightly, but we believe it is better to take the time needed to resolve the complex issues, rather than rush the Bill through.
I want to place on the record my deepest thanks to the families and stakeholders for all their continued work with us. It has been the biggest privilege for me, personally, to have had the opportunity to get to know them and to work alongside them over the last year—in particular Margaret Aspinall, Charlotte Hennessy, Sue Roberts, Steve Kelly, Jenni Hicks and Hilda Hammond, who I now personally count as my friends, and I hope they feel the same.
The Bill is about restoring trust between the public and the state. That trust cannot be demanded: it must be earned. It must be earned by showing the families that this legislation is not about appearances, not about headlines, not about being seen to act; it is about making real and lasting change. By listening to the families, and by taking time to get this right, that is exactly what we are doing. Because when things go wrong, the truth must come out. Accountability must follow and families must never, ever again be left to fight or walk alone. That is what the Bill will achieve, and I commend this statement to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the shadow Secretary of State for Justice.
Alex Davies-Jones
I thank and pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his diligent campaigning on this matter throughout his entire life as a parliamentarian, and for his commitment to ensuring that the voices of the families are always heard inside and outside this place. I make the commitment to him that the Government are listening to the campaigners and committed to doing all we can to work on a way forward. We will work with him, with other parliamentarians and with the Intelligence and Security Committee to find that way forward on this complex and difficult issue. I am committed to having a meeting with him to discuss that further.
On a timeline, we know that families have waited too long. The Bill is not just overdue; it is far too overdue, and it is needed more than ever. However, it has to be right, and we have to get the balance right. We are not kicking the Bill into the long grass; we are committed to doing this as soon as possible, but we have to get it right. I am not setting an arbitrary deadline here—the families have asked me not to, because they want us to get it right. We are committed to doing that and to getting this policy correct. As soon as we have more information, I will bring that forward to the House.
My hon. Friend mentioned his specific amendment. Again, I am happy to speak with him on that and discuss it going forward. Again, I make the commitment that we will work together to get this right.
Separation Centres: Terrorist Offenders
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(8 months, 4 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)
The right hon. Gentleman raises a very important question. Separation centres are a vital part of our strategy to manage those who pose the most significant terrorist risk. Following the horrific attack at HMP Frankland in April this year, we took immediate action to ensure safety in our separation centres. Today, everyone is safe and a stringent regime remains in place.
Our prison officers are some of the hardest-working and bravest public servants in this country. It is right that they feel safe as they work to protect the public. That is why, following the attack at Frankland, we mandated the use of protective body armour in our highest-risk units, including our SCs, for the first time. The Deputy Prime Minister has recently announced a further £15 million investment in safety equipment, including to roll out up to 10,000 pieces of body armour to up to 500 staff trained in the use of Tasers.
The Abu judgment is very fact-specific and does not threaten the integrity of the separation centres themselves. This Government take the judgment and others that were referenced very seriously. We are clear that any decision regarding segregation must comply with prison rules and human rights obligations, including under the European convention on human rights. We are working to ensure that our referral process is robust and are strengthening our ability to defend against legal challenges. Specialist staff continue to assess referrals rigorously, and placements are made only where the criteria are met.
Let me be clear: the Government will always put national security first. Separation centres remain an essential operational tool, and we will continue to use these specialist units to protect the public from the most dangerous offenders.
Robert Jenrick
Sahayb Abu is a danger to this country. This is an ISIS fanatic who bought a combat vest and a sword so that he could, in his own words, “shoot up a crowd”, yet this week the High Court ruled that keeping him apart from other prisoners to prevent him from radicalising them was a breach of his human rights. We have reached the perverse situation where a terrorist’s mental health is prioritised over national security and the protection of the very men and women in uniform who are targets for these dangerous individuals with very little to lose. Abu is now in line for a payout from the taxpayer.
This is not an isolated incident; it is the latest in a line, including the double murderer and extremist Fuad Awale and Denny De Silva. Every extremist housed in a separation centre may now be able to deploy this judgment to escape being housed in such a unit and to get a payout. Terrorists are weaponising the ECHR and the public sector equality duty to milk the state, and the Ministry of Justice is signing the cheques. I note that the Minister did not say that she would be appealing this judgment.
The separation centre regime was created to counter highly subversive terrorists recruiting inside jail and to ensure protection for prison officers, which is effectively collapsing. Prison governors are being paralysed just when there is a crisis of extremism and extreme violence in our prisons, necessitating more separation centres and more segregation.
Will the Minister finally publish Jonathan Hall KC’s review of separation centres, which was produced as evidence in court but which has not been published to this House or the country? Will she say that under no circumstances will any terrorist be rewarded in this manner, and bring forward emergency legislation to override this judgment, prevent payout, protect national security and protect our prison officers? I have said many times that it is only a matter of time before an officer gets killed by one of these monsters. Will the Minister bring forward this legislation? If she does, she will have the Opposition’s support; if she does not, we will do so.
Alex Davies-Jones
The right hon. Gentleman will be well aware that I am unable to pre-empt decisions that are yet to be taken by the courts. The Government will always ensure that taxpayer money is used responsibly and effectively. On the most recent judicial review, announced just yesterday, the Government are considering all the available options, including the right to appeal. I want to put that on the record.
I find it quite disingenuous that the right hon. Gentleman—the almost Leader of the Opposition—talks about leaving the European convention on human rights. If he feels so strongly about this, why did his party do absolutely nothing on it when it was in government for 14 years? The Conservatives talk about action; this Labour Government are acting. We have been clear that we will not fail to act on reform of the ECHR; in fact, the sentencing Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Jake Richards)—is in Strasbourg right now having discussions with partners on a range of topics, including reform of the ECHR.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the findings of Jonathan Hall KC’s independent review of separation centres. The Government commissioned that following the attack at HMP Frankland, and Mr Hall’s report and our response will be published in due course. Let me just say, for the avoidance of any doubt, that it is the priority of this Government—as it should be of all Governments—to keep the public safe and to protect national security. This Government will always ensure that that is done.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)
May I thank the Minister for reaffirming the Government’s support—which it should not be necessary to do—for the rule of law and the ECHR? Will she concentrate on the key points here? The first is making sure that the most dangerous prisoners are held securely and the second is ensuring the safety of prison officers. Will she also say what the status of Jonathan Hall KC’s review is? I understand that it has been with the Lord Chancellor for some months. When will we see that and when will we implement the recommendations of the report?
Alex Davies-Jones
As I have stated, the Government are committed to ensuring that separation centres continue to prevent those who pose the highest terrorist risk from influencing the wider prison population. That is precisely why we commissioned Jonathan Hall’s independent review following the appalling attack at HMP Frankland. Mr Hall has delivered his findings, which we and the Lord Chancellor are grateful for, and which we are considering very closely and with the utmost seriousness. We will publish the review and the Government response very shortly, but we are taking all relevant steps to ensure that our prisons and our prison staff are safe.
Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)
What a sorry state of affairs. This case highlights the consequences of a prison system, which includes separation centres, that was overstretched and under-resourced by the last Conservative Government, of which the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) was a prominent member—he has now forgotten that.
Please will the Minister confirm what assessment the Ministry of Justice has made of the decade of Tory underfunding and overcrowding, which left prisons unable to safely manage violent extremists such as those we have been talking about? Will she also outline how Abu’s ideology and violent behaviour escalated the need for extreme segregation measures? Finally, violent attacks on prison staff are on the rise. We have seen high-profile cases of prisoners, including one from my constituency of Woking, being accidentally released. What assurances will the Minister give us, as MPs, that public safety and the protection of prison staff will be prioritised in the under-resourced prison system that the Government inherited from the Conservatives?
Alex Davies-Jones
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. In the past, the convention has served the victims of John Worboys, the families of the 97 killed in the Hillsborough disaster and British troops who died in Iraq, and it underpins the Good Friday agreement. It is frankly astonishing that the Conservative party, after 14 years of failing to do anything on the ECHR, seeks for us to withdraw from it, when the only other country to do have done so is Russia under Vladimir Putin. Is that the company the Conservative party wants to keep?
We are working to ensure that our referral process is robust, and we are strengthening our ability to defend against any legal challenges. Specialist staff continue to assess referrals rigorously, and placements are made only when the criteria are met, but to answer my hon. Friend’s question specifically, the Conservative Government, as we have already heard, left our prisons at breaking point. They were at 99% capacity, and the Law Society of England and Wales has stated that the answer to that is not leaving the ECHR.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
When it comes to terrorists, what is worrying a lot of us is the fact that people are pouring across the channel illegally and there is absolutely no check whatsoever on them. The Minister may not be able to answer this now, but I am interested in the state of the law. Surely it is a very risky thing for our nation that our enemies could be infiltrating our country in this way. Would it be possible under the refugee convention to detain all illegal migrants, do full background checks on them, and put them in separation centres or whatever, so that we can check that these people are actually safe?
Alex Davies-Jones
I am grateful for the extension of an offer to help. I will ensure that that is followed up with our counterparts in Northern Ireland. We will follow the evidence and do what works to keep our prisons safe. We will assess the risks of any further radicalisation in our separation centres and our prisons to ensure that that is not happening, and we will keep under review whether any individuals pose a danger through extending their views to the prison population or to the public. I look forward to working with counterparts in Northern Ireland to share knowledge and expertise to ensure that we get this right for everyone across the United Kingdom.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the Minister for her short, sharp answers—perhaps a masterclass for what is to follow. Business questions will run for an hour and no more.
Victims and Courts Bill
Caroline Nokes ExcerptsMonday 27th October 2025
(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Victims and Courts Act 2026 View all Victims and Courts Act 2026 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 27 October 2025 - (27 Oct 2025)
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I am very conscious that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet) made an impassioned and moving speech, but I remind Members that we must refer to her as the hon. Member for Bolsover.
Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)
I will speak in favour of new clauses 13 and 14 and the expansion to clause 3. I served with some colleagues in Committee, but may I begin by thanking all Members who have contributed tonight? We have had a series of impassioned speeches from across the House, and I particularly thank my hon. Friends the Members for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet), for Knowsley (Anneliese Midgley) and for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Dr Tidball) for their powerful contributions.
The amendments we are discussing this evening are a significant step forward in protecting victims of serious violence and they will help thousands of people. They will help to ensure the safety of victims of serious sexual abuse and victims of crime who have signed a non-disclosure agreement, and, crucially, these amendments will also protect children.
New clause 14 will ensure the protection of children born of rape. On Second Reading, I spoke of a constituent who had had a child as a result of an abusive relationship. She told me of the extreme difficulties she had been facing as she had passed through a long and complex custody battle. She asked me if we, as politicians, could look again at parental rights in the context of abusive relationships. I am very pleased that new clause 14 will protect children born in such circumstances. No longer will children born of rape, or their mothers, be forced to have a relationship with a rapist. Currently, mothers in some cases must co-parent with a rapist. Women should not be forced to include their rapist in decisions on their child’s healthcare, schooling, or any other aspects of a child’s life. Children should not have to be raised by rapists.
Mothers who have a child born of rape should be safe in the knowledge that having a child will not tie them to their rapist. Automatic restriction of parental responsibility will ensure that mothers and children are safer. Rapists should not have the automatic right to interfere with their victims’ lives. This clause frees families from the stress and pain of applying to court by ensuring that this restriction is immediate.
The expansion to clause 3 similarly ensures that any person convicted of serious sex offences against any child has their parental rights removed. The safety of children is the utmost priority, and expanding this measure from those who have abused their own child to those who have seriously abused any child will ensure the safety of the children the perpetrator is closest to. Paedophiles should have no right to look after any child.
I am also pleased to see that new clause 13 will allow us to clamp down on the misuse of non-disclosure agreements, which are used to hide instances where a crime has occurred. Victims of crime should not have to worry about who they speak to regarding the crime of which they are a victim, and non-disclosure agreements should not be used to silence victims of crimes, nor should they stop witnesses coming forward. This change will mean that victims and direct witnesses of crime can speak to their friends, their family and their support system, but they can also speak to their employers and, if necessary, to journalists. I very much welcome the closing of this loophole, which allows criminals to scare victims into not sharing their experiences. The law must not protect those who seek to silence victims.
These amendments will allow us to take significant steps towards the Government’s aim of halving violence towards women and girls. But more than that, these amendments serve to give victims of serious violent crime justice.